So, I first would like to acknowledge pzantingh, also of the Monthly Mixtape community, from whom I brazenly stole this brilliant idea. The thing is, I make these mixtapes every month to send to one person. Occasionally, I'm proud enough of them to post them on the community board, but I still feel that they're being wasted to a certain extent. Also (to a lesser extent), I want the constructive criticism that inevitably comes from exposing your work to the much wider audience of musical sticklers that is Last.fm. Finally, a blog of this kind gives me the chance to make some of that cool cover art that everyone seems to like so much.

A couple of caveats: I won't tell you which ones are which, but there are definitely some of these mixes I'm more proud of than others. Looking back, there are definitely some things I would have changed, but I've put them up in their original condition, warts and all. You will also notice that there is no mixtape for November of last year. …

Well... this is the tenth time I've done my ten songs, so we'll call it week 10, anyway.

with any luck, this one will be just as good as last time in uncovering randomly amazing stories! although I don't know that much can beat an Allman Brother (seriously, that is the most awesome thing ever!!)... but you never know. Maybe someone's Ben Ottewell's girlfriend, or something (in which case, I jealous you to death....).

Elliott SmithI just got the XO. A friend of mine (YEMinaJar on last.fm) was in town spending a few days, and he's a huge Elliott fan, so we did a lot of listening to it and From a Basement on the Hill and his self-titled (Elliott Smith. XO is really incredible if you like songwriting. Most of his albums are rather lamenting sounding (not quite to the same extent as say Radiohead, but still very sad), but XO is more upbeat and happy sounding. However, the lyrics are as depressing as ever, so it adds a certain irony to the music.

PhishLike I said in my last journal, I've been doing a lot of listening to A Picture of Nectar. I never went through a "phase" with that album, but I'm obsessed with the songs Llama, Cavern, and Poor Heart. For those of you live Phish fans, I recommend 6/22/94 for great versions of both Llama and Cavern. That also happens to be my favorite Phish show ever. 8/14/93, another of my favorite shows, has a great Poor Heart on it (also…

So, mcbean and lesalanos replies to my last post get me thinking about songs that I’d like to be serenaded by, or, because my mind shies away from ridiculously romantic things like that, (personally, I’m not keen on overly demonstrative type stuff – sure it’s somewhat adorable when it happens to others, but it’s just not for me) songs I’d like to have ‘dedicated to me’ or have someone give me on a mix CD, not necessarily as a message to me, but just because they knew I loved the song/s.

I spent a couple of days thinking about it, but still all I’ve come up with is the four that popped into my head in the first five minutes of pondering.

I’ll Be Your Friend…but you just haven't made me yet.I had a torrid three-week affair (read: stupidly self-indulgent mopey period) with this song during the middle of last year, where I listened to this repeatedly just to make myself feel like crap, during a “woe is me, I’m so dissatisfied with life!” period. …

This is a complete ‘Daddy’s Girl’ post that I wrote in my Livejournal sometime in December - it was supposed to be for the 25th of November, my dad's 59th or 60th birthday (I'm not sure which, but birthday's ain't that big a deal in our house), but I didn't have the time to spare.

pope paul, malcolm x, british politician sex. j.f.k blown away, what else do I have to say? So, Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’, which my dad really likes. Likes so much in fact, that one week it was top of my audioscrobbler chart because he’d listened to it that many times. Repeatedly. At high volume. While I’m in the next room trying to watch crappy soap operas. And of course, because he’s the most mature person ever, turns it up even higher when I ask him to do the opposite. I ask you – who’s the awkward teenager here? Personally, the first time I hear it’s pretty frigging cool – it’s like the musical version of snakes in can – but after the fourth repetition; musically, it loses its appeal. …